


The Truest Story Never Told

by Veldeia



Category: Marvel Noir
Genre: Fluff, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Origin Story, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-23 07:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14930060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veldeia/pseuds/Veldeia
Summary: To pass the time as they wait for rescue in the Catacombs of Paris, Tony tells Steve the story of how he ended up with the repulsor pump.





	The Truest Story Never Told

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lets_call_me_Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/gifts).
  * Inspired by [In the Catacombs of Paris](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13085466) by [Lets_call_me_Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/pseuds/Lets_call_me_Lily). 



> For [Lore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily), based on her outline for the lovely Holiday Exchange [art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13085466). She also did the beta for this, so thank you so much for both the art and the help! <3

"It's okay," Tony said, adjusting their emergency blanket so that it cocooned most of Steve's upper body, even his head. "There's nothing to do now but wait. You just rest. Take a nap, if you can."

Steve bit back the defensive dismissal that was already on his lips.

He had spent his whole life telling off people who assumed he was weak. In certain ways, he was, he couldn't deny that. He would never win any races of strength or endurance. All too often, running left him breathless, and lifting things too heavy for him sometimes gave him strains, not to mention that he lost every single fight he ended up in. Still, that wasn't going to stop him.

It hadn't stopped him from following Tony on several dangerous missions, including the current one: searching for a magical ring that might not even exist in the catacombs deep beneath occupied Paris. Now, the two of them were stuck in a collapsed tunnel, surrounded by darkness full of bones and dust and spiderwebs. Even the earthy smell of the air was foreboding.

Steve had twisted his leg badly when they'd been running away from the falling rocks. The painkillers he'd taken had driven away the worst of the pain, but he was left with a constant dull ache in his knee. Tony had taken a look and concluded that it was probably a bad sprain, though he had no way to entirely exclude fractured bones. Whichever the case, the result was the same: Steve's leg wouldn't hold his weight. Not that they had anywhere to go, even if it did.

Luckily, they'd managed to get a message through to Jarvis, who was probably already on his way to them with a backup team. There was no telling how long it would take to find a route to where Steve and Tony rested and clear the rubble blocking the passage, but it was only a matter of time. Unless something unexpected happened, they were in no real danger.

Had Tony been anyone else, Steve would've protested loudly at his coddling. He would've insisted that he was fine and pushed away the blanket, as soothing as it was, and pointed out that what he lacked in physical strength, he made up for in strength of character. He might have added that although his slender frame and youthful looks often had people mistaking him for a kid half his age, he wasn't easily frightened. To further emphasize his words, he might even have refused the offer of a shoulder to lean on, as much as he enjoyed the safe feeling of another body so close to his.

Still, right now, the truth was that Steve was tired, in pain, and more than a little unnerved—and he knew that Tony knew, and that was fine. He wasn't going to deny it.

He settled into as comfortable a position as he could find, his head tucked into the nook of Tony's shoulder, the blanket-hooded top of his head just beneath the rim of Tony's helmet.

If there was anyone who understood that lack of physical strength didn't equal weakness, it would be Tony. After all, even if he was better at hiding it than Steve, Tony had his share of serious health troubles to handle.

Over these past months that they'd been working together, Tony had told Steve his greatest secret: that of his damaged heart, and what it took to keep it beating. Steve wanted to believe that Tony had shared it because he trusted Steve just like Steve trusted Tony, but it had, at least in part, also been born of necessity. Sometimes, Tony needed help maintaining the repulsor pump, and if there was no one else around, the task fell to Steve.

Lost in thought, Steve shifted his hand on Tony's chest so that it rested over the metal plate protecting the device that kept him alive.

Tony tensed at first, but then relaxed. "Don't worry, I'm fine," he said, misinterpreting Steve's gesture as a question.

Steve wanted to tell him that it would be okay to say if he wasn't, but he knew Tony was even less likely to admit such a thing than Steve was. "Glad to hear that," he said, instead.

They stayed like this, in silence, for a moment that stretched on. Resting against Tony's side, wrapped in the blanket, Steve felt more warm and cozy than he would've thought possible in these gloomy passages. The quiet surrounding them didn't feel half as oppressive when he could hear the whisper of Tony's breathing next to his face and feel the soft thrum of the repulsor pump under his palm.

Steve closed his eyes, thinking he might actually do as Tony had suggested and take a nap. Unfortunately, when he tried to slow down his rambling thoughts, to clear his mind and welcome sleep, the ache in his leg took over his full attention. It wasn't seriously painful—he'd suffered much worse—but it was impossible to ignore. He doubted he'd be able to fall asleep without something to distract him.

He raised his head to glance at Tony, and saw that he wasn't sleeping either. He seemed just as lost in contemplation as Steve had been, staring into the distance, past the wall of bones illuminated by the beam of his headlamp.

"You still haven't told me how you got it," Steve spoke up, and gave the metal plate beneath his fingers a light tap to clarify what he was talking about. "You promised you would."

Tony drew a sharp breath and blinked, his eyes seeming to refocus on the cavern around them. Clearly, Steve had caught him by surprise. Finally, he looked down at Steve, and said, "Hm, I did, didn't I? It's quite the story. I guess now is as good a time for it as any."

"I'd really like to hear it," Steve encouraged him.

"Right. So, for this one, we have to go to the beginning of my adventures. It was 1929, and Rhodey and I were on our first proper expedition in the Andes. Wow, was I young back then, so innocent and so excited, the whole world still unexplored and just waiting for me," Tony started his account, the nostalgia thick in his voice.

"You're not that old. That was only ten years ago," Steve pointed out.

Tony made an amused hum. "Flatterer. It really feels like much longer than that. The plan for the trip was to climb the mountains in search of a lost city of the Incas, which was said to contain priceless treasures. We were our way towards the starting point of our ascent, driving in a Jeep along a winding road through the foothills with a few locals we had hired to guide us, when suddenly, bang! The front tires blew up, just like that, first one, then the other. It was a struggle to keep the car on the road.

"At first I had no idea what had happened, but when we got out of the car to check the damage, we found ourselves surrounded by bandits. It was an ambush; they'd shot the tires to stop us, and now they wanted everything we had. But we were armed, and we weren't just going to surrender without a fight. We took shelter behind the Jeep, and soon found ourselves in a proper shootout. It might've continued for a long time if not for that one lucky shot. It happened during one of the times when I stood up to return fire, and it caught me right here." Tony rapped the protective metal plate close to Steve's fingers.

"I knew it was a bad hit right away. When I passed out, Rhodey's worried shouts the last thing I heard, I thought I was gone for sure. But then," Tony took a dramatic pause. "I woke up in a cave, and with me was this mysterious Asian man…"

Steve huffed, and decided he couldn't let Tony go on any longer, because he was obviously pulling Steve's leg. "That's a captivating story, but that's not at all how Rhodey described the Andean expedition."

"Huh, you talked to Jim about it?" Tony said, clearly taken aback. "What did he say, then?"

"That the bullet grazed your shoulder. You eventually drove away the bandits, but you had only one spare tire, so you had to abandon the Jeep. In the end, you still found some interesting ruins, even though most of the treasure had been pillaged long ago. He definitely didn't mention you getting shot in the chest. I think he would've remembered that."

"Well, yes. He would've, and you're right, that is what actually happened," Tony admitted sheepishly. "I'm just too used to not telling the true story to anyone, since what happened isn't exactly one of my proudest moments."

"Seeing as how we're currently stuck here, I know these adventures don't always go as planned. You can tell me," Steve urged him on.

"If you insist," Tony said, giving Steve's fingers a pat before he returned his hand to his lap. "Okay, so, it was four years after the Andes, when we had already seen our fair share of adventures, and had a proper team working for Marvels. We often hired some locals as well, since there's no substitute for their know-how. That trip, hiking through the Amazon rainforest, we had a guide called Juan, a cheerful fellow who swore he knew the best way to this temple we were looking for. He also brought a couple of his friends along. One of them, Cauac, seemed suspicious from the start. He didn't really talk to anyone, just scowled, and would often disappear for hours on end without warning, never explaining where he'd been afterwards. Not that he spoke any English—or so we thought.

"Anyway, we were making good progress, heading deep into unexplored jungle. It was hard going; often it felt like we weren't as much hiking as digging a green tunnel. Rhodey was having the time of his life, though, with all the plant and animal life we encountered. A lot of the species were entirely unknown to science."

Steve had closed his eyes, but he wasn't about to fall asleep. Even if Tony's voice was very soothing to listen to, he was too curious to hear the rest of the story.

"After a week, late in the afternoon, we came across a statue half buried in the undergrowth. It was a sign that we were getting close, Juan said, but it would still take half a day to reach the temple itself, so we decided to set up camp for the night. As usual, Cauac wandered off. No one paid much attention to that— we knew that he'd be back by morning. After a pleasant evening spent in good company, we alI settled in our tents to rest.

"You know that I'm a light sleeper, and that may have saved my life that night. Some hours later, when it was pitch-dark outside, I woke up to someone rustling at the entrance to my tent. 'Who's there?' I called out, and picked up my flashlight to look. The sight chilled the blood in my veins." Tony lowered his voice like someone telling a horror story, and Steve found himself holding his breath waiting to hear what would come next.

"At first, I wasn't sure whether it was a man or a monster that I was looking at. He wore a mask with horns and tusks, its mouth set in a terrifying grimace, and his clothing was a robe decorated with fur and feathers. I didn't recognize him then, of course, but it was Cauac. He held a long ceremonial blade with serrated edges, pointing it at me. 'Stark! I will not let you defile the sacred ground,' he growled in flawless English. 'You will pay in blood for trying to do such a vile thing.'

"I wasn't just going to sit and wait for him to murder me as a ritual sacrifice. I grabbed for the first weapon I could find, which was a machete that I'd been using to carve my path through the jungle, and lunged at him, forcing him outside.

"We fought, like a crude mockery of a fencing duel, his terrifying blade clashing with my machete. But he was a big man, much stronger than me, and I was no match for him. He managed to knock my weapon out of my hand, leaving me defenseless, and pushed me onto my back. The last thing I knew was him chanting in a language I couldn't recognize as he drove the blade right through my heart."

"Really?" Steve blurted out. He couldn't help but be skeptical about that. "You're telling me you survived a stab wound to the heart in the middle of the unexplored jungle?"

"I had help! My team was right there, brought out of their tents by the noise," Tony tried.

"And you built the repulsor pump as you lay bleeding out, with a knife sticking out of your chest? Because you've always said you made it yourself," Steve reminded him.

"Okay, okay, you got me," Tony admitted. "That's not exactly what happened. But it’s a great story, isn't it?"

"Sure, straight out of Marvels. Did any of that actually happen? Did you even go on that expedition? Did Cauac really stab you?" Steve asked, not sure if he'd believe Tony's answers.

"Oh, he tried to. But I already had the repulsor pump then, and the cover plate made the blade slip. Gave me a nasty gash on the arm. I can show you the scar sometime," Tony replied, shrugging his left shoulder. "Like I said, by that time, the noise had brought the others out of their tents, and we managed to subdue Cauac. Turned out he was part of a cult that claimed to be the offspring of the original temple builders. Some villagers we met later told us that it was nonsense, and that no one really knew the deities the temple was dedicated to anymore."

Maybe that was the truth. It still wasn't the story Steve had wanted to hear. "Okay. So, it wasn't in the Andes or the Amazon. Where did it really happen?" Even if he wouldn't get the true story, he liked listening to Tony telling these tales.

"It was in another part of the world entirely," Tony began for the third time. "High up in the Himalayas, where we had heard rumors of a magical gem with unimaginable powers hidden away in a secret, sacred cave. The climb was one of the most memorable that I've done. The views were breathtaking—that's a pun, of course, the air was very thin—and the walls we had to scale really tested our skills. We had to haul poor Virgil up the worst parts like a piece of luggage.

"We found the cave, eventually, just where the notes we were following said it would be. The previous explorers hadn't gotten very far in, because it was a labyrinth filled with puzzles and booby traps. As it happens, I've always been good at working my way around those. We avoided the falling boulders and bottomless pits and the descending blades, and finally, deep inside the mountain, we found it."

Steve let his eyes drift shut, no longer caring if he missed some details here or there.

"It stood on a stone pedestal adorned with intricate carvings," Tony went on. "A shimmering dark red stone, like a giant ruby, polished to a perfect sphere. I should have known better, after all the traps, I really should've, but my success had made me complacent. I reached out for the stone. The second my fingers made contact, there was a bright flash of light, and a jolt of electric pain ran down my arm.

"The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, flat on my back, with Rhodey kneeling by my side. My heart was fluttering, skipping beats, and it felt as if there were a terrible crushing weight on my chest, though there was nothing on it."

"Mm-hmm," Steve hummed sleepily. "So what really happened?"

Tony prodded his arm. "You're no fun as an audience," he complained, though his tone was light. "It's all true, and it felt pretty darn awful. That bolt shut down the repulsor pump, and it's only because I had Rhodey there to help me get it running again that I'm still talking to you."

"That must've been scary," Steve said. He shifted position, settling lower against Tony's shoulder, holding on to the blanket so that it wouldn't slip away. "Tell me another one."

"All right. For you to understand the whole story, I need to give you some background into a trip to Venice. It wasn't an expedition as such, not like my usual fare. I was there to do research, because I had heard of these ancient manuscripts on a monastery island. It was there that I first met Natasha..."

Tony kept going, speaking of the passionate affair he'd ended up having with her, which Steve couldn't help but feel slightly envious about. But some time after they'd left Venice and Tony ended up on a tangent about foreign politics and how he'd eventually found himself in Siberia, Steve lost track of the story, lulled to sleep by Tony's voice and the sound of his heartbeat mixing with the thrum of the ever mysterious repulsor pump.

In his dreams, Steve was traveling with Tony, but it was nothing like their current war-time quest in the bowels of Paris. They were adventuring together, climbing a magnificent mountain in a far away country just for the joy of it. Steve had never visited such a place before, and he was enjoying every second of it, with Tony as his skillful guide.

They'd just reached the end of a long day on the trail, snuggling close in a shared sleeping bag, when a change in Tony's tone broke through the dream and beckoned Steve back to wakefulness.

"They're all great stories, and true, too, but none of them answer your question," Tony said, his voice soft and somber. "The one that does, well, that isn't a good story at all." He fell silent, as if waiting for Steve to react.

Steve didn't, but kept his eyes closed, listening intently, curious to find out what Tony would come up with this time.

"I wasn't always the man you've learned to know," Tony went on. He still spoke in that serious tone, completely different from the one he'd used when spinning his previous yarns. "When I turned 18 and got my hands on the inheritance, it wasn't pretty. I'd lost my parents. I'd been told that because of my weak heart, I might not live to be very old myself. The way I saw it, I could either spend my short life moping, or I could have some fun. The latter sounded like the better plan.

"I was young, reckless, and had too much money. You could say my life was one big party back then. I spent the days posing as the company figurehead, the evenings with a glass always in my hand—Champagne, cognac, Scotch, the more expensive, the better—and the nights with some beautiful dame in my bed. It's no wonder I quickly gained a reputation."

Steve supposed Tony assumed that he was asleep, because unlike all the other stories, this sounded real. Steve almost felt as if he were eavesdropping, but he wanted to hear all of it. The sleepiness was nowhere to be found now, replaced by a deep curiosity.

"Of course, after a few years, it all caught up with me, and I got sick. Really, considering how I'd been living, it had only been a question of time. It was worse than ever before; I was used to feeling tired, or getting a bout of palpitations every now and then, but this was like an actual heart attack. The chest pain was so bad, it left me in tears, and I was bedridden for several weeks.

"It was a sobering experience. It came to me that if I kept going as I had been, I'd definitely be fulfilling that prophecy of not living to be very old at all, but maybe it wasn't too late to change things. I decided to take up a strict exercise regime as soon as I'd recovered enough. It was during one of many easy walks through the park that I had the idea of tackling the great outdoors. Rhodey, who had always been more interested in the natural world, was excited to hear of my idea, and soon, we were planning our first proper trek. From the start, there was the thought at the back of my mind that maybe there was a solution somewhere out there, some way to escape my fate.

"I was still prone to tiring more easily than completely healthy people, and chest pains and palpitations bothered me occasionally, but I tried not to let that slow me down. Besides, I was definitely more fit than I'd ever been. We went on that first expedition in the Andes, and I handled the high altitudes without any major problems. I thought I'd left the worst of the heart issues behind me, until a trip to the Sahara desert a few years later nearly became my last."

This wasn't an expedition that Steve had ever heard anyone mention, neither Tony himself, nor Rhodey, Pepper or Jarvis. Once again, he found himself holding his breath in anticipation. He half worried Tony would realize he wasn't asleep and stop talking, but he went on.

"That's not a gripping story, either, no great adventure. I drove myself too hard, expected my body to handle things that were too much, so that the exertion and heat and dehydration got to me. I ended up too exhausted to stay on my feet, and we had to abandon the expedition. I thought it'd pass when I got back home and had some rest, like these fits tended to. It didn't. It just got worse.

"Getting out of bed to go to the bathroom felt like a day's worth of hiking, and I was constantly short of breath. I still remember the exact words of the doctor who delivered the devastating verdict back then: 'I'm deeply sorry, Mr. Stark, but all this strain you've put on your heart has damaged it beyond what we can treat. All we can do now is to make the rest of your days as comfortable as possible.' There were some medications that they suggested, but they didn't help, and left me nauseous. No one expected me to live longer than a few weeks, maybe months, if I was lucky.

"I had many bad days when I just wanted it to end, but I never stopped thinking about ways to fix it. I'd already survived so many things. There had to be something I could try, I thought. I read what medical literature I got my hands on, and finally, came up with the idea that since my heart was failing to pump as it should, maybe I could build a device to do that job instead. I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without Jarvis and Jim. At first, they were skeptical, and probably humored me only because it gave me something to do, but slowly, they came to see that it might actually be plausible. Together, we built a prototype.

"That first version of the repulsor pump was a monstrosity. We had a hard time finding a surgeon to help in the installation, since everyone was convinced it would just kill me. It was the size of a car engine, ran on grid electricity, and tied me to bed more effectively than my illness ever had—but it worked. I finally felt better, my thoughts clearing up as the fluid that had built up in my lungs did.

"Since I was still stuck in bed, I had a lot of time to think, and I kept working on ways to improve the design. The second version was small enough that I could carry it around in a backpack. Through many rounds of trial and error and occasional setbacks that left me at death's door, it became the device that's currently implanted in my chest. It's not a perfect solution, but it works. Despite the years I've spent searching all corners of the world, I haven't found anything better. Now that I've got a power source that should last for the rest of my life, I've come to accept that this is how I'll spend it, however long it ends up being.

"So, you see, there are reasons why I never tell anyone this particular story," Tony concluded, his hand brushing Steve's arm lightly under the blanket. 

Steve had never heard Tony sound so fragile before, his voice so raw and without the slightest trace of bravado. It made him sad that Tony still felt like he had to put up a front for him, and that he'd only told the truth once he thought Steve wasn't listening.

Steve couldn't stay quiet any longer. "This one was my favorite out of them," he said.

Tony gave a startled jolt, his hand dropping away from Steve's arm. "I didn't realize you were awake! You heard all of it?"

"I did," Steve confessed. In a bout of courage, he took Tony's hand in his. "And I really meant that. It was the most extraordinary story out of all. But, you know, even if it wasn't, that would be okay. You're allowed to be an ordinary human too, just like the rest of us."

"I'm very much an ordinary human, and all too aware of that," Tony said, sounding confused.

"And yet, you always do your best to hide it," Steve insisted, squeezing Tony's fingers. "He's an awesome person, that Tony Stark from Marvels, the one whose life is a continuous adventure, whose heart is whole and who's never been afraid or uncertain of anything. I just like you better."

"But that's the person you thought you'd be working with," Tony pointed out. "The adventurer from the magazine. Not some tired old man with a past full of regrets."

"You're still not that old," Steve returned, nudging Tony's side with his elbow. "And who said you're tired? You definitely didn't, which is exactly the point I was making."

Tony let out a dry chuckle. "I guess you're right about that. I've spent my whole life telling people that I can manage when they're worried that I can't, so it's become second nature."

"I know exactly how that goes, and I understand. I just wanted to tell you that you don't need to put on a brave face for me," Steve said. "You never think any less of me if I admit that I'm weary and hurting, right? You shouldn't think any less of yourself, either."

"I'll try not to, from now on," Tony said, his voice soft but warm. He let go of Steve's hand to wrap his arm around Steve's shoulders in a loose hug. "Thank you for telling me that. I appreciate it."

Steve shifted to sit more upright so he could see Tony’s face properly. "So, are you tired?"

"Maybe a little, but we're resting anyway. Are you still in pain?" Tony returned.

Steve had felt a twinge in his knee as he'd moved, but now that it had passed, he could barely notice the ache. "A little. It's not that bad."

Tony turned his head so that the light of his headlamp illuminated Steve's legs, which of course didn't look any different than they had before. "You're not playing it down for me, are you?"

"I swear I'm not," Steve said truthfully. "And I also don't feel sleepy at all anymore. Maybe you could tell me another story?"

"If you're not fed up with my voice yet, I'd love to," Tony said.

"I don't think I ever will be. I prefer the true ones, though," Steve noted.

"Only the truth for you, from now on," Tony promised solemnly. "Cross my heart. Both flesh and metal."

"Good," Steve said. He placed his head against Tony's chest, settling into that position he liked best, where he felt the safest.

Tony tightened his hold around Steve, pulling him even closer. Then, he took a deep breath and started again. "So, there was this one time, five years ago…"

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to keep my take on Tony's backstory/heart issues as close to canon as possible, with the tiny amount of actual canon we have on the topic. Mainly this comes down to:
> 
> -A mention in Scott Snyder's Iron Man Noir #1 script of "It's like a pace-maker, keeping Tony's weak heart pumping despite his genetic condition," making his heart issues genetic and not the usual "injured by his own weapons and kidnapped" kind of deal.
> 
> -Dialogue from Rhodey in Iron Man Noir #3 stating "A long time ago, before your heart was this bad. — When I first started with you on that trip to the Andes in '29," which implies that it wasn't always this bad—and I can't imagine anyone implementing something as crazy and invasive as the repulsor pump without it being Very Bad.
> 
> On top of these, I also wanted to include the idea from Lore's outline for the art's backstory that there was some kind of a lifestyle element involved, so that Tony would at least partly be blaming himself for making things worse, instead of it just being genetics and bad luck.


End file.
